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String of BB-gun shootings under investigation in Manchester

Police in Manchester are investigating after eight people were shot at with a BB gun by someone in a car that has a similar description in each case.

Five of the BB-gun shootings happened Tuesday afternoon in a spree that started at mid-afternoon and ranged from the west side to South Willow Street.

Police said that just before 3 p.m. Tuesday, Paige Desmarais, 17, was walking home from West High School near Notre Dame Avenue and Kelley Street when she was struck by a BB pellet.

Desmarais told police she believed it was fired from a white four-door sedan driven by a white man waving an Airsoft gun with an orange-tipped barrel.

"I heard the shot, so I kind of looked over, and I had my headphones in, so at first I didn't really understand it," Desmarais said. "He kind of slowed down a bit when he did it."

Desmarais described the shooter as a white man who was tan and scruffy. She hurried home, and told her mother what happened when she got home from work.

"She had a doctor's appointment, and then on the way to the appointment, she said, 'I got shot at,' and I'm like, 'What do you mean?'" mother Lori Desmarais said. "She showed me the welt and everything, and as soon as we got done with the appointment, I called the police."

"People have described either a single male occupant or as many as three male occupants in the vehicle at the same time," said Lt. Maureen Tessier.

About an hour later, someone in a passing car shot pellets at two people walking across the Bridge Street bridge. A 58-year-old woman was struck in the leg, and a man walking just ahead of her was hit in the back.

The man described the vehicle as an older-model white Honda riding low to the ground, police said.

Thirty minutes later, a report came in from Cedar Street, where a woman outside her home said she had been struck in the chest by a pellet shot from a car driving by. She described the vehicle as a white, four-door sedan occupied by three young men. The car's license plate started with "336," police said.

Tuesday's final reported attack happened about 15 minutes after the Cedar Street shooting. Police said that just across from the Mall of New Hampshire, a cyclist felt a pellet strike his back, where it left a small red welt.

"We're concerned about this activity," Tessier said. "We certainly want some information about these people so we can find out who they are and stop them."

Similar incidents were reported on Monday, with witnesses giving a similar description of the vehicle.

Paige Desmarais and her mother hope police can make some arrests before someone is seriously hurt.